


like vines we intertwined

by azfellbooksellers



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Flower Symbolism, Gift Giving, Happy Ending, Horticulture, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azfellbooksellers/pseuds/azfellbooksellers
Summary: When neither the world nor their friendship end, Aziraphale can't help but wish for more, and yet finds himself too scared, too self conscious to make the first move. And then the plants start invading the bookstore.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 116
Collections: O Lord Heal This Gift Exchange





	like vines we intertwined

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragonBiblio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBiblio/gifts).



BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,

  
The holy tree is growing there;

  
From joy the holy branches start,

  
And all the trembling flowers they bear.

“The Two Trees”

\- William Butler Yeats

He’s reshelving a well loved copy of _Devil’s Cub_ when he spots the tendriled plant, tucked into the empty spot in the uppermost right shelf. With furrowed brow, he pulls himself and his rolling ladder towards it.

“Oh hello, dear,” he breathes, manicured hands stroking over a leaf. “How on Earth did you get here?” 

It’s a small thing, nestled into a sleek black planter. The leaves are heart shaped and satiny and colored a lovely bright green. He twists one gently in the late afternoon light and marvels at the flame patterned cream colored spots that dot it. 

“Marvelous. Truly marvelous,” he says. “But how?” Aziraphale looks around the shop and sees nothing else out of place. He’s been in the shop, alone, all day, save the twenty minutes he’d been down the street retrieving a hot tea and a sugar-dusted palmier from a nearby café. 

“I’m afraid to say I’ve no idea how to care for you,” he confides in it. “Well, we’ll just have to sort that out, won’t we.” 

⁂

A bell above the door chimes gently as Aziraphale enters the shop. It’s filled with verdant, vibrant plants spread across tables and shelves and nearly overflowing on a counter with a semi-visible cash register. The sheer amount of color in the room brings him back to the wonders of Babylon. He twists his ring and thinks of the revelry that bloomed on Crowley’s face as they wandered through the city on a languid summer evening. 

He shakes himself from his thoughts and approaches the counter. 

“How are you doing today, sir?” The woman behind the counter brushes her bangs back from her hairline closer to where the rest of her curly black hair is swept into a high ponytail. 

“Oh, jolly good! Lovely weather we’re having, isn't it?”

“I love a white winter, so I’ve got to agree with you there. Can I help you with this?” She gestures at the plant that’s nestled in Aziraphale’s arms. He sets it down on the table and unclasps his hands to push it towards her.

“Yes, er, I was wondering what kind of plant this is?”

She leans down towards it and spares it a considering glance.

“It’s an _Epipremnum aureum_ , a very common houseplant. Surprisingly resilient, and it’ll stay green even if you leave in the darkness. They don’t require much care, really, and they actually do a good job at removing pollutants in the air! Sometimes they’re referred to as money plants, but most people call them devil’s ivy.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale exclaims as he steps back from the counter. 

“You didn’t know before you bought it? It’s just a name, really. Quite a lovely plant,” she says.

“No, it,” he struggles to find the right words to quality and quantify the fragile nature of their current dynamic but pushes on, “it was a gift. Of sorts. From a friend!” 

“That’s sweet,” she remarks. Aziraphale glances over his shoulder, lest the demon sneak up on them and insist, sibilants drawn out, that it's _really not_. “But they didn’t explain to you what it was? No wonder you came to me.”

“I believe it was intended to be a surprise, er. At least I think it was.” He picks up the plant and settles it against his chest. “Thank you very much, dear girl, you’ve been quite helpful!”

The walk back feels much, much longer. He cuts through the hefty crowds like butter, mind wandering as people unconsciously swerve to miss him. He’s known, of course, for some time now that Crowley has a fondness for plants. It was in Eden that he first witnessed the demon inspect and caress the freshly bloomed flora with a face of open awe. 

And now, after everything that hadn’t happened, he’d even spent the night in the presence of Crowley’s supremely well kept plants. That his otherwise cold and sparse flat should be home to such a magnificent display of life, seeded from nearly nothing and cared for until they burst into something to marvel at, something to love? It was one of two shocks he’d felt while wandering through his closest friend’s home. 

The other was a book, splayed open in front of his ridiculous throne. _The Extremely Big Book of Astronomy_ . Aziraphale snorted. He ran his fingers over the glossy pages and took note of a wine stain on the open page. It concerned a binary star system, Alpha Centauri. A bell rang in his head and he could hear a whisper of something said long ago, slurred after a third bottle of Musigny - _used to help make them_ . _The starsss, I mean_. 

A realization dawned on him and he looked back and forth from the book to the plants. 

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, Crowley. You silly thing, you.” Now that it’s spelled out in front of him, he’s unsure how he ever missed it. The plants, the stars - his urge to create and nurture life, any life, in any form. In any way he was allowed to anymore. 

This is what he thinks of as he presses the heavy planter close on his walk home. It’s not as if this is even the first plant Crowley has ever given him. That had been a single yellow rose, cheekily bestowed after a jousting tournament they’d both wound up at. More had followed - a white and red intertwined, six peach roses tied in ribbon, eleven orange ones with a box of honey roasted figs, and finally thirteen lovely red roses to accompany the chocolates he’d brought to celebrate the opening of the bookstore. 

He lets his back rest against the shop door after it clicks shut and draws a deep breath in. The plant fits snugly back into the spot he’d found it and he leans back on his heels to admire it again. Aziraphale tugs at the well worn bottom of his vest and exits the building.

Despite his general attitude toward personally bookselling, he had to respect the art in and of itself. Certainly, without it he’d never have found a fair amount of his favorite 16th century pieces. A smile tugs at his lips as he wonders if the stores had finally begun to sell bookmarks in house. 

He wanders through his usual route, down the streets of Soho and into St. James’ Park. There is no flash of auburn hair or casual call of ‘angel’ anywhere, so he continues north into Mayfair as per usual. A few moments later, he happens upon it.

A bookstore. Hatchard’s, to be exact. Aziraphale had met the boy when he was but a young apprentice to Thomas Payne, and had often enjoyed discussing literature with the perspicacious youth. Later, he frequented the man’s shop as often as he could, and only partly to see exactly what business techniques to ignore in order to ensure the safety of his own books. That aside, it had been well over fifty years since he’d stepped foot in a bookshop apart from his own, and the neatness of the displays and stark, bright modern lighting sent a wave of confusion over him. 

“Can I help you, sir?” He faces his third customer service representative of the day, a record he hasn’t beaten in years. 

“I do hope so. I’d like to find some books about plants? Specifically, taking care of houseplants and such.” 

“Of course! Let me show you the section,” the gentleman gestures to his left and Aziraphale follows him dutifully. 

“You lookin’ for anything specific?” 

“Ah, well, yes. I was recently gifted a plant by a friend and I am interested in learning how to tend for plants. I’d very much like to keep it alive,” he says.

“Oh,” the bookseller muses. “Was it a rose?” 

“No, not this time, at least. Why? Does that matter?” 

“Depends,” the man says as he peers into the shelf they’ve stopped at. “Ah, here we go. _Leaf Supply: A Guide to Keeping Happy House Plants_. This should do you well as an introduction.”

“Thank you _very_ much.” The elderly bookseller’s gaze flickers around Aziraphale’s face and settles into confusion. “Now, you said something about roses?” 

“Ah, I used to enjoy incorporating rose symbolism in bouquets for my wife in my youth,” he says and winks. “Plants have loads of meanings, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“Oh! Well, I’m sure it’s nothing of that sort. I suppose it’s more likely he ran out of room to put new ones,” he ruminates. “Anyway, thank you, you’ve been terribly helpful.” He shakes the man’s hand and tries to ignore the sly smile on his face as he leaves.

⁂

The steaming cup of honeybush tea in his hands is a boon as he peers over the book spread across his reading desk. His afternoon had been spent like so many before it - chasing knowledge on a new subject via the medium of the written word. As much as he enjoyed a reread (and certainly, a Heyer reread could, and often _would_ curtail his plans for an evening), there had always been something thrilling, tantalizing even about reading a new book. _Especially_ on a subject he wasn’t particularly familiar with himself. 

As he’d learned over the past few hours, plant ownership was both wildly simple, and _terribly_ convoluted. The particular plant he’d been gifted was, as he’d both been told and read now, relatively easy to care for. As long as he put it in neither direct sunlight nor derelict darkness, and didn’t overwater it, and let it drain, it should reasonably be alright. He is pleased to see that Crowley had chosen a planter with drainage holes. Aziraphale places a thin towel underneath the plant and admires it as it rests back up on the bookshelf. 

In the following weeks, he doesn’t mention anything. The first time Crowley comes by, Aziraphale spends a good chunk of the afternoon shooting meaningful gazes toward the shelf the plant rests on, but Crowley gives him no indication of recognition, and he drops it. A month later, he’s ready to chock the whole thing up to a misunderstanding, when he sees a small pot with lavender sprouting out of it, resting on the edge of one of his end tables. The smile it pulls from his is unconscious and unbridled and the shop is that much brighter for it. 

⁂

There is a spot on the ivy. Aziraphale eyes it like a sticky fingered child within reach of a first edition Beatrix Potter. He presses the pad of his finger to the soil and frowns at the dryness. The brown tinge to the edge of the leaf curves like a mocking smile, chiding him for his lackluster plant parenting skills. He mists it until the dirt’s color matches that of ground coffee and tuts disapprovingly. 

The book suggests a higher humidity, to slow the leaching of the moisture in the air. He harrows a trip to the department store and suffers a silent cab ride back to the bookshop. The humidifier is bulky, but top of the line. At least, the weary eyed associate had insisted that it was, the creases around her lips folding like a sheet as she’d pulled her lips into a tight smile. He tucks it under a table overflowing with snuff boxes (themselves further stuffed with baubles and trinkets) and quite forgets about it. 

When he next checks the ivy, it’s back to its normal self. The lavender is as fragrant and fluffy as ever. Pleased, he closes a full hour early and lets the gentle smell envelop him, like morning dew on blades of grass. Crowley phones ahead that night, and by the time he strolls in with a Bouju cognac, Aziraphale has prepared a charcuterie board with thick slices of camembert and gruyère laid next to paper thin bresaola and heartily cut rosette de Lyon. He’s rather proud of his choices, and sets the tray and accompanying artisan crackers on the low table between them with aplomb. 

Crowley takes a deep draw from his glass and leans across the table. Aziraphale jumps when his fingers brush the lapel of his jacket, and the demon retreats a little. 

“Sorry,” he starts. “Crumbs,” he says as he brushes them off. “S’not like you.” Aziraphale smiles at him.

“Quite right. I’m afraid I’ve been a tad distracted today, snacking on the job,” he says. He brings his hand up to Crowley’s cheek and pauses. “May I?” 

A small nod is his response. He slowly pulls the sunglasses off the demon’s face and meets his eyes for the several thousandth time. 

“Though, you also seem distracted, my dear. These are usually off by now,” he remarks and tucks them into the jacket pocket. When he looks back up, Crowley is still fixing him with a curious look, the golden hour sunlight drifting in and lightening his eyes to the shade of a canary’s feather. 

“Yeah,” Crowley croaks. “Suppose I’m a bit out of it too. Lots of things changing for me, us, and whatnot. I mean. For me, I mean. Lots of changes for me. Change city over here…” He leans back into his chair and stares into his glass. 

“Are you alright?” His voice ticks up into a high warbling thing at the end, worry bleeding through. He rubs a gentle circle on the threads of his worn trousers. 

“Course I’m alright! I’m always alright, me. And what about you? No celestial interventions from above? Menacing cards that play “The Sound of Music” ad infinitum?” 

“No, none of that.”

“Good. Great, actually. So no changes at all? Everything still where it’s supposed to be?” He glances in the direction of the bookshelf that houses the devil’s ivy, and Aziraphale’s spine grows even more erect, drawing him further from the back of his chair.

“Yes. Everything is tip top. A few things have moved, of course. There are even a few…additions to my collection.” 

Crowley sips at his cognac and doesn’t meet his eyes. 

“Lovely additions. All, like you said, right where they belong,” he says. He winces. It’s a little on the nose, even for him. 

“And you really don’t mind? Not really one for change, you.”

“No,” he says quietly. “Actually, I find I quite needed it. A push in the right direction, as it were. Sometimes I need a little encouragement to try something new.” Crowley leans back on the couch and into a satisfied smirk. “Though, honestly, I can’t believe you’d imply such a thing. ‘Not one for change’. I helped bring about an entirely new genre of writing, I’ll have you know!” This earns him a derisive snort.

“Are you talking about that night at Villa Diodati? Oh, angel,” he groans. “You’re always on about that. Just because you were in the area covering for me does not mean you can claim that as one of yours!”

“I disagree,” he says primly. “If I hadn’t tempted Byron to indulge in more wine, then he never would have started reciting the Coleridge, and they never would have started trading stories, and we’d never have gotten _Frankenstein_ or _The Vampyre_! Though I have to say, I find myself very pleased that my dear Mary was the one to really kick the genre off. Smart as a whip, that one.” He looks into his glass and finds it quite a bit emptier than he expected. He sets it down on the table.

“Mmm, which Coleridge poem was it again? ‘Christabel’, is that what you said last time?” Aziraphale nods. “‘So deeply she had drunken in that look, those shrunken serpent eyes’,” he quotes. “Not very subtle with all that snake imagery.” 

Crowley’s voice was rife with amusement. He poured them another round, and another, until the rounds faded together and the afternoon slipped into the evening.

⁂

Aziraphale is giddy. This shift, this new and changing energy between him and Crowley has set him alight and he goes about his daily routine with new aplomb. He finds himself smiling at the oddest things, and even the most persistent customers can’t dampen his mood. His record player has taken to switching on Puccini as he flits about the store. He’s humming along to it a few days later when he notices that something is wrong.

The low thrumming of the humidifier grows louder as he kneels down to inspect the bookcase to its right. His face blanches in terror. Trembling, he reaches out and pulls a book from the shelf. The spine is warped, and the pages have been wrenched from it where the binding has swollen and contracted. He opens it and lets out a low moan when he sees the yellow encroaching on the corners of the endpapers. 

Aziraphale pulls out another book and finds it in a similar state. He sorts through the entire shelf this way, books piling up on the ground around him. The further he gets from his starting point, the better they look, until he reaches the first unaffected book nearly a dozen feet away. For a moment, he pauses, completely lost. The books…

He snaps his fingers and they’re all repaired, instantly. There’s a burning at the corner of his eyes. In two hundred years, he’s never once used a miracle to affect a book. It seemed wrong, somehow, to cheat like that. Books, magic, cooking, living creatures: all the best things fare better with a more human approach. To have broken away from this unsaid rule has shaken him, and he reshelves the newly fixed books in silence.

⁂

The next few days are spent dithering. He’s quite good at it, really, having had so many years to practice. He busies himself with scaring off customers and rereading his way through the works of Edith Wharton. When he closes the shop at night, he miracles the damage from the humidity away and ignores the sour taste it leaves in his mouth. 

He is not enjoying himself.

His flat upstairs hasn’t seen much use in the two centuries he’s had it, but he finds himself wandering up there in the early evening more often now, if only to avoid the books. Sometimes it feels like they are glaring at him for failing to protect them. He can’t blame them, really. A few of his favorite texts have migrated up there with him, since he’s never really seen the fuss about sleeping, and he’s quite enwrapped in one when he hears the front door clang open. 

“Aziraphale?” He gets out of bed and toes his slippers on.

“Yes, Crowley? What are you doing here?” 

“Where are you?” He’s halfway down the stairs, book still clutched in hand, when Crowley finally comes into view. “Oh, there you are. What were you doing up there? Sleeping? You don’t sleep.”

“I was reading,” he says as he finishes descending the staircase.

“Reading,” Crowley says.

“Yes, I thought some Wharton would do me well.”

“Why aren’t you in your usual spot?” He gestures to the armchair. Aziraphale wrings his hands and looks away from him.

“My usual spot? I’m, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I read in a lot of places! My desk, for instance, and my...sofa.” 

Crowley looks at him like he’s sprouted a second head, or scowled at some ducks, or refused a second serving of dessert.

“Angel, _how_ many hours have I waited in this shop for you to finish up a chapter before we go out? Not once have you ever done it upstairs,” he says, yellow eyes flickering to the staircase like he’s keeping a watch on an enemy.

“Well, I needed a change of pace. Lots of new things to try out, now that we’ve got the time.” There’s a spot on pink dusting Crowley’s cheeks now and Aziraphale furrows his brow. Has he upset the poor fellow?

“Good,” Crowley says. “That’s, that’s good then. So you like it?” 

“Like what, my dear boy?” 

“Reading upstairs?”

“Oh! Oh, yes. I do. As I said, a nice change of pace.” The cacophony of the street outside seems to amplify the silence between them, and Crowley leans his hip to one side as he jams his fingers into his ridiculously tight pockets. 

“Some wine,” Aziraphale finally offers a moment later. He sniffs and ignores that his voice ticked up higher than he’d liked at the end. 

“Thought you’d never ask.” Crowley walks over to his sofa and falls back onto it, all long limbs splayed at sharp angles on the soft cushions. 

It doesn’t happen often, but that night he dozes off under the haze of alcohol and doesn’t wake until the feeble predawn sunlight is filtering in. He wipes a spot of drool from his chin and blinks bleary eyes at the empty couch across from him. 

When he ventures upstairs to put his book back, there’s another plant, resting on his bedside table.

⁂

Crowley is in his flat watching _Golden Girls_ when the phone call comes through. He falters on his way to answer it, waits for Blanche to finish delivering a scathing insult involving hair pins, and picks up the receiver. 

“Yeah,” he asks, still distracted by the show.

“Crowley? I...we need to talk.” He realizes who he’s talking to and snaps his fingers to turn the television off.

“We do?” He brushes a lock of hair out of his face.

“Yes, I rather think we do. Would you mind dropping by today?” 

“Be there in twenty,” he says and hangs up on him. He’s aware of the rising rate of his heartbeat and the growing lump in his throat as he puts himself together and leaves the flat. The Bentley’s tires are squealing under a minute later as he rips away from the curb. 

⁂

Truly, it’s a lovely plant. There are sizeable, glossy leaves shaped like hearts cascading down the side of the planter all the way down to the floor like a wave cresting over the bow of a boat. He inspects it the way he has all the plants so far, and retrieves his book to investigate further. It doesn’t take him long to identify it.

Heartleaf philodendron, or _Philodendron scandens_ : the sweetheart plant.

Aziraphale draws in a shaky breath and reads further, and the words on the page seem to blend together as he furiously takes them in.

Practically thrives on neglect. A plant most eager to climb, as high and as quickly as it could, away from what’s below. Be sure to keep it out of the direct sun.

He brings the plant downstairs and sets it on the table by the entrance. Phoning Crowley is easy enough, the number long memorized, and afterwards he settles into the chair nearby. He waits. 

Barely twenty minutes pass before he hears the telltale sound of a car door slamming. The front doors burst open, and suddenly Crowley is stood there, each hand grasping at the wood, his russet hair mussed and flopping in the breeze. He pauses for a moment, eyes darting around the shop in confusion.

“Angel?” He looks at Aziraphale and then drags his gaze to the front table. When it lands on the plant, his expression darkens. He drops his arms from the doors.

“My dear,” he says, rising from his seat. “I find myself terribly confused. Could we please talk?” He gestures to the back and Crowley follows him to their usual spot. The demon sinks onto the couch with none of his usual flair, arms crossed tightly over his chest and knees bouncing tempestuously.

“I’m not angry,” he starts, and a bit of the tension pulling Crowley’s frame taught like a bowstring melts away. “I just want to know why?”

“Why what?” Crowley picks at nonexistent lint on his jacket. Lint knew better than to cling to his clothes, thank you very much, but Aziraphale was none the wiser. He picks at it a bit more.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “Please help me understand. Why do you keep gifting me these plants? And why has it all been so very secretive?” 

There’s a moment of silence between them again, and Aziraphale is very quickly growing weary of feeling at odds with his best friend. Bantering and bickering aside, he’s preferred the warm companionship that has settled between them in these last few millennia. It feels wrong to have it strained.

All at once, the tautness of Crowley’s body disappears. He leans back against the couch fully and leans his head to the side, exposing the long, pale column of his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I never meant to confuse you or upset you. I’ll take them back if you’d like.” He rises from the couch and turns toward the entrance. Aziraphale jumps up and wraps his fingers around his wrist, stilling him. 

“Wait. I don’t want you to take them back. I like them. They...they brighten up the shop!” He tries for levity and wholly misses, lands somewhere in the vicinity of nervousness. 

“You...like them.” 

“Yes, yes, of course I do.” Crowley is still refusing to meet his gaze and Aziraphale feels his desperation ready to bubble over and spill across the whole of him. He drops his hand from Crowley’s wrist to lace their fingers. “They’re from you, part of you. Of course I must admire them.”

Air, lacking the free will and brain matter to consciously do much of anything at all, physically cannot choose to vibrate whenever it pleases. Still, there’s a charged tension in the air between them, bouncing back and forth and sparking until Aziraphale feels as if his skin is aflame with a hellish fire. He waits.

Crowley squeezes his fingers. 

“The problem, then?” Aziraphale closes his eyes. He can be patient. He thinks of six thousand years, of rescues and raucous nights, of roses and pastries and teas and the endless stream of gifts he’s received, of the careful nudging toward the arrangement, the repeated attempts to spirit him away from impending doom, the cautious way he’s been regarded in the months since. He can do this, for Crowley. He can swallow the nerves and the self doubt and fear, oh, the fear of messing this up and ruining everything, the feeling that he’s _doomed to failure_ and wildly out of his league. 

“The problem is, I still don’t know why. Except, I have this awful feeling that I do.” The fingers wrapped up in his drop and he looks at the floor. “In your flat, the night before our trials, I came to a realization. Your plants, they’re...they’re more than a part of you. They’re a reflection of you, of your urge to make and do _good_. You were an angel, once. You told me you helped hang the stars. Is this your new way of doing that? Of making life, instead of destroying it?” 

Crowley turns to face him and takes a step away at the same time. His glasses slip down his nose a bit, and Aziraphale is stunned by the intensity suddenly there. He pushes on. 

“And the plants you chose. The first made sense, and it was amusing, but the second two? Lavender? Do you know it symbolizes queer love? And the...philodendron. The sweetheart plant.”

“Bloody obvious, isn’t it?” Crowley has crossed his arms again, like he’s trying to pull all of his parts in, a perfect opposite of the way his words begin pouring out like water bursting free from a dam. 

“Been trying to tell you for ages now. Nothing’s worked,” he hisses. “I’ve tried it all. Wine, chocolates, pastries, _roses_! And then the world didn’t end and I thought, that’s it then, perfect opportunity for things to change, and then they just didn’t and I didn’t know what to do. Sure, we’ve been seeing a lot of each other, picnics and the theatre and it’s been lovely, really it has, but it’s brought all of these emotions to the forefront and you know how that goes with me, I’m rubbish at feelings,” he pauses for a moment when Aziraphale shoots him a knowing look, both of them remembering the sound of his cries in a bar on the eve of the Apocalypse. 

“And without Downstairs looming over my shoulder, and the both of us on, on our side, I thought I ought to tell you—”

“Tell me what, Crowley?” 

“And I didn’t know how to, is the thing,” he continues. “So I thought, y’know, nothing else has worked, and I don’t really have a lot of stuff to begin with, but I’ve got my plants and I’ve put effort into terrorizing them, I really have, and for some reason I do care about the little buggers, and I just thought if there’s anything left I haven’t tried it’s giving you something _I_ care about, something that’s a part of me in some way and just hope that it was finally enough for you to figure it out!”

“Figure what out, Crowley,” came the deliberate reply. 

“What?”

“What you ‘ought to tell me’, what I’m meant to ‘figure out’, Crowley! Please, I’m so very terrified to get it wrong, or to misunderstand.” He ghosts his fingers over his lips, the shock of the words they’re both spitting out into the open keeping him from fully clamping his mouth shut.

“You know, angel, you must know. After all of this, how can you not?” Aziraphale takes a deep breath and steps tentatively towards him, like he’s approaching a skittish animal. Crowley’s dropped his arms at this point and the urgency from moments before seems to have dissipated, leaving him vulnerable and tired looking.

“Are you trying to say,” he says as he grabs Crowley’s hand to hold it, for the second time in one afternoon, and isn’t that something, “that you have feelings for me? Romantically?” Crowley lets him intertwine their fingers again.

“Aziraphale, I’m trying to tell you that I’m in love with you.” An unbidden smile blooms on the angel’s face, a bud turned brilliant flower. He raises their joined hands and presses a kiss to the back of Crowley’s.

“Oh, well, good. See, I had rather hoped that was what you were going to say.” A long arm wrapped around his back and drew him in close until their chests trapped their hands between them and their faces were inches apart. 

“You bastard! You knew?” Aziraphale looks into Crowley’s face and, finding only amusement, wraps his arms around his neck, a newfound confidence behind his giddy movements.

“Dreamed that you might, more of it. Now, would you kiss me, dear? You’ve waited an awfully long time.”

“Might do,” Crowley mutters before he leans down and presses their lips together in a chaste kiss. “Is this real? I’m not piss drunk in a gutter somewhere, lip locked with a rat or something?” 

“A rat?" Aziraphale is sputtering. "You paint such a romantic picture for me.” His disgust fades when he feels soft kisses trailing down his face. “I certainly hope it’s real. I quite think we deserve this, after all.” 

“Deserve what?” The question is muffled where Crowley whispers it into his neck, lips brushing a sensitive spot under his jawline.

“A happy ending. Or rather, a new beginning. Together.” He wraps his hands around Crowley’s face as best as he can, pulling him up so they’re at eye level and taking in the sensation of the warm skin beneath his fingers. “Would you like that?” 

Crowley nods and covers Aziraphale’s hands with his own.

“More than anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, big shout out to fairyglass for catching like, a dozen bleary eyed mistakes that I'd made in this bad Larry, AND in the middle of the night too. 10/10 beta, would recommend!! 
> 
> Shout out to google and wikipedia because I don't know SHIT about plants but I did a lot of research and I think I did okay *iron_man_city_on_fire_in_the_background.gif*
> 
> Title SHAMELESSLY lifted from "We Intertwined" by The Hush Sound. Some of us never left our Fueled by Ramen phase and it shows.
> 
> This is a gift for the lovely Bilbiodragon, who is always so sweet and such a wonderful presence in the server! I took the prompt of Crowley leaving potted plants around the shop, and it escalating until it culminates in Aziraphale asking him about it after he finds one upstairs. I loooooved this prompt and then my brain said "okay, this, but make them REALLY dense and very in love" and it just. ballooned from there. Keep an eye out for an NSFW follow up hopefully, when all of the holiday madness dies down!


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